Attending preschool marks the beginning of a new phase in your child’s life. As a parent, approaching this major milestone may be exciting and nerve-wracking. Your toddler may also be feeling a mix of emotions. While this transition to preschool is not easy, there are many things about preschool to look forward to. Help your little one prepare for this big step. Make the transition as smooth as possible by using these simple tips and tricks.

Use pretend play

Make the idea of preschool more fun and exciting for your child by using pretend play. Take turns in playing the role of a child, parent and teacher. Act out the routines that are going to take place when preschool starts. For example, act out saying goodbye to mommy and daddy before leaving for school. Act out being in a classroom, interacting with teacher and peers, reading books, playing and having fun while learning. This activity will help your toddler with what they will experience in preschool.

So you are looking for child care for your child. What is it that you would like from a child care center? What do you want your child to experience and learn? When you think “daycare” what do you think? Chances are that you may believe that daycare and educational child care are the same thing and most childcare programs are so similar that it doesn’t matter where you enroll your child, as long as it is safe. And while it is true that regulations have made most childcare centers extremely safe, there still can be huge and important differences in program quality. Let’s take a look.

One of the biggest misconceptions about child care is that it is just another form of child supervision, like babysitting. And in some cases, this may actually be true. Not all child care centers are accredited. And not all child care centers hold themselves up to the current standards of quality child care practices. The best way to determine the quality of a child care center is to learn how much emphasis is put on two things: safety and education. Educational childcare centers have programs and staff that are dedicated not only to day care supervision but also to the intellectual and social growth of the children in their care. Let’s take a look at some of the aspect of quality educational child care.

The Apple Tree Learning Center is devoted to educational child care.

Educational Child care vs. Daycare

“Daycare” and “Childcare” are terms that are often used interchangeably. In some instances, that is okay. But childcare, especially educational child care, offers more in the way of programs than traditional daycare.

Daycare can best be described as a daily babysitting service. There is nothing wrong with traditional daycare. Children are supervised, fed and given some fun activities to do while their parents work. It is essentially out of home babysitting. But you may be looking for a little more for your child and the money that you will be spending.

Types of Educational Childcare

Educational childcare is usually reserved for children from infants to preschool age. But there are also some great programs that cater to school age children as well. Summer camp programs are often a great way to keep older kids engaged and learning during the summer break.

But the most popular and most well-known type of educational childcare is preschool education. There are many benefits of preschool child care for both parents and students, including preparation for kindergarten, social engagement and cognitive development.

Preschool is not just daycare. It is a place where your child transitions from the at home informal learning of early childhood, to the more formal classroom based learning of kindergarten and grade school.

There are also great educational toddler programs that focus not only on play but also on learning and cognitive development and motor skills. Before enrolling your child in a child care program, don’t be afraid to ask the center staff exactly what their philosophy and curriculum is. If they are a quality child care center, they will gladly offer you their information and educational policies.

Educational Child Care Programs with The Apple Tree Learning Centers

The Apple Tree Learning Center in Tucson is dedicated to providing the most engaging educational child care for children from infants to school age kids. Our programs seek to build the cognitive, social and motor skills in a safe and loving child care setting. In addition to our traditional educational child care, we offer some fun enrichment programs!! Our dance program will get their body and minds moving. Our Music program will flex their higher level abstract reasoning skills. And our Spanish and sign language programs will give a boost to their language acquisition skills. No matter their interest, we are dedicated to the intellectual flourishing of your little scholar! Come check out our programs and contact us today! We look forward to hearing from you!

Summer is coming up fast. Soon your child or children will be out of school and ready to soak in the warm summer weather and all the awesome activities it brings. However, experience may remind you that after a few weeks of summer fun the “I am bored” complaints begin. Good news! Summer camp programs can keep them busy and give you a break.

On top of the boredom that can accompany the long, sweltering days, is your need of good childcare for your little ones while you are at work. Child care summer camp programs can solve both of these issues. Summer camp for your child can give you a break from 24 hour care and gives your child fun and exciting things to do. Let’s take a look at some of the great benefits of summer camp!

Say Goodbye to Boredom with Summer Camp Programs!

Summer is a time to learn outdoors!

As the novelty of the summer weather wears off and kids get bored, they can often become fixed to their computer and video games and end up spending a good portion of the summer indoors. For us who spent a lot of our summer vacation outdoors exploring, playing and having fun, seeing our children stuck to the screen for hours on end makes us worry that they are missing out on being a kid! Summer camp and other summer programs offer your children fun and engaging activities that will get their body moving, mind thinking and curiosity piqued, and it allows them to be a kid again!

Hands on Learning in Nature

Summer camp and summer programs are a great way to teach kids that not all learning happens in the stuffy classroom. While at summer camp, kids will soon discover that real learning can mean dirty hands, wet clothes and exploring nature. Summer camp can teach your child outdoor skills and will allow them to experience mother nature’s classroom to the fullest.

Unstructured Playtime

Along with structured activities to get a child’s mind thinking and curious, summer is the time for free, unstructured play and exploration. Summer camp allows kids to relax away from the classroom and explore their interests. Summer camp will give your child the ability to explore their inventiveness in play, problem solving and learning.

Social Skills

Banish the boredom with summer camp!

Summer camp not only brings kids to nature and great activities. It also brings kids to each other. Summer camp activities are designed around group learning and problem solving. They learn to cooperate with other children, share resources and participate in group learning that prepares them for both the classroom and the real world.

Independence

Summer camp gives kids the opportunity to make choices and decisions as individuals away from their parents. Whether it is a day camp or overnight camp, the time at summer camp is spent learning to be themselves.

Summer Camp Programs at The Apple Tree Learning Centers

If your children are bored during the summer, they sure won’t be here! The summer programs at The Apple Tree Learning Center are sure to keep them busy having a good time. Let us help you discover that you have what it takes to be a kid with character! Caring, Honesty, Respect, Responsibility… these are the important skills and values you will practice and learn through fun activities, service learning projects and team building activities during summer camp! Come check out our summer program and contact us today! We look forward to hearing from you!

Starting preschool is one of the biggest milestones for both parent and child. The start of a child’s first preschool year

Starting preschool doesn’t have to be scary! Come check out preschool at The Apple Tree Learning Center!

is often the beginning of his or her first formal learning experiences. And it may also be the first time that parent and child have been separated for any significant period of time. Both the newness of the experience and the separation can create anxiety for parent and child. But if you are both prepared, the transition to preschool doesn’t have to be miserable and scary. Here are a few tips to help you and your child prepare for the first day of preschool.

Starting preschool tips for the Nervous Parent

Believe it or not, parents are just if not more nervous than their child on the first day of preschool. As a parent of a young child, leaving them to the staff and teachers of a preschool can be an intimidating experience. This may be one of the few times that your child has been away from you for a long period of time and you worry about how they will take it. This cyclical worry in which you become worried about your child’s worry – – let that spin for a moment – – is a totally natural reaction. Follow some of these tips to help calm your nerves.

Remind yourself of the great benefits that enrolling your child in preschool will impart on them.

Keeping this positive though in mind can help relieve some of your anxiety, which are mostly negative and defeating thoughts not based in reality.

Get to know the teachers and staff a little before starting preschool. Getting to know the teachers makes it easier to leave your child with them. They are no longer strangers, but partners in your child’s development!

Make friends with the other parents. Being able to share your concerns with another parent is a great way for both of you to deflect and dissipate the anxiety of starting preschool.

Go do something for you! If you have up till this point been focused on your child, the start of preschool may be a great time for you to do some fun stuff that you have wanted to do. Join a gym, take a class you always to take, or just go out to lunch with a few good friends – kid free!

These tips will help make the transition from parent of toddler to parent of young scholar much easier.

Starting preschool Tips for a Nervous Child

Some kids can be nervous before starting preschool. Talk to them about their fears.

Starting preschool can be just as intimidating and nerve racking for the child as it is for the parents. While you as the parent are trying to calm your own nerves about the beginning of preschool it is important that you don’t let your anxiety rub off on your child. In this scenario, your over worry is very counterproductive and can end up making your child more nervous than she would be. So the first tip to helping your child overcome any anxiety about the first day of preschool is to speak positively about preschool and how much fun it will be. Below are some more tips to help your child adjust and become the accomplished little scholar you know they can be

Associate the first day of school with new and exciting things. Take your child to pick out a new backpack and fun school materials. Let your child pick out most of the items. This will help them to get excited about preschool instead of nervous.

Make a playdate with some of the other children in your child’s class. Get a list of other parents from the preschool and call them up and ask if the want to have a playdate. This will make it easier for both kids to start preschool because they will have already made friends, making the environment more familiar.

If your child is still exhibiting nervousness about the first day, give them something of your that they can hold onto during the day. Tell them that you are giving it to them for safe keeping and that you will be back to get it. This will help calm separation anxiety.

Talk to your child about your preschool experience and how much you learned, laughed and loved and all the friends you made. If you have any, show your kids pictures of you on your first day of preschool. They will love this and it will show them that it is a positive experience.

The last thing to remember is to never give up. Don’t pull your child out of preschool because you are her may be having a hard time adjusting. It is totally natural to be nervous with such a new setting and situation and any nerves wear off in no time as your child experiences new and fun activities and events. And you get the awesome benefit of hearing all about their great days at school!

You may already be aware of the many proven and established benefits of early childhood education. And while it is true that some early childhood education like preschool is better than no early childhood education, not all of these programs are created equal. There are not only differences in quality. There are also differences in theory, philosophy and the focus of the program. A quality preschool or early childhood education program is going to focus on a range of learning and developmental categories, giving the child a well-rounded first exposure to formal learning. Part of this broad and all-encompassing preschool education should include preschool music programs.

What are Preschool Music Programs?

Join us at The Apple Tree Learning Centers for guitar with Mr. Ray!!

Preschool music programs are designed to give young children their first exposure to music as a way of learning. They are also introduced to music as an object of learning. Your child has no doubt by this stage developed an ear for music and perhaps sings along to their favorite songs on repeat, over and over, much to your enjoyment and exhaustion. The next step is to teach the rudiments of music theory. That is what preschool music programs do.

Some Benefits of Preschool Music Programs

According to research compiled by PBS, music education imparts a number of positive benefits on all age groups. In preschool age groups specifically, music programs have been shown to develop the part of the brain involved in language acquisition and speech. Language development, the article continues, is essential for proper social development as well.

Another benefit of preschool music programs has been revealed in measures of intellect. According to the results of a study conducted by E. Glenn Schellenburg at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, six year olds who were given weekly music lessons showed an increase in IQ test scores over children who did not participate in any music education programs. This should come as no surprise. Neuroscience has discovered that the brain of early musicians works more efficiently than that of a non-musician.

Even further, because of the more efficiently functioning brain and neural network of the child exposed to music programs, these children also exhibit improvements in fine motor skills, sound discrimination and spatial temporal skills.

All these subtle benefits of preschool music programs are also displayed academically. According to a 2007 study, students who were involved in music education programs scored 22 percent higher in English and 20 percent higher in Math on standardized tests.

Preschool Music Programs at The Apple Tree Learning Center

Preschool Music Programs are great for teaching kids to play instruments.

At The Apple Tree Learning Center, we are dedicated to providing our children with quality preschool and early childhood education programs. Because of this commitment to the best, The Apple Learning Center understands the vital importance of preschool music programs. The Apple Tree Learning Center’s music education program, led by classically trained musician Ray Funk, is designed to exercise all the mental, social and physical faculties of the children. Mr. Ray has been teaching in Tucson preschools for over 23 years and has dedicated his professional life to making music part of the lives of the children attending The Apple Tree Learning Center.

Nearly everyone agrees that reading to children aloud has a beneficial impact on the child’s intellectual and cognitive development. It is a common assumption in early childhood education circles. The American Academy of Pediatrics has even gone so far as to recommend that parent read to their children from birth. Keep reading to learn more about the many benefits of reading to children.

Reading to Children Helps Them Learn the Basics

Study after study has shown that reading to children makes the process of learning to read once they are in school much easier. Reading aloud to your child allows them to begin to understand the rudiments of reading. Even if they aren’t talking yet, reading to children has benefits.

For example, children are not born with the sense that reading is performed from right to left. But by reading aloud to your children and pointing to the words as you move along the page, your child will quickly learn that the sounds you are making are associated with the symbols and movement across the page. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for a child just learning to read, it is huge!

It’s Important to Read to Older Children Too

Once your child starts reading on their own, that doesn’t mean that the benefits of reading aloud to them have been exhausted. In fact, the benefits of reading to older children are just as important to the development of their vocabulary and reading skills as it was when they were younger.

According to a study reported by the New York Times, reading to older children fostered a continued love for reading and learning. Further, by reading more and more complex material to your children, they are exposed to words and ideas that they may not pick up until a lot later in normal educational settings.

Reading helps with bonding too!

Reading to Children Helps Them Bond with You

Another, often overlooked, benefit of reading to children is the time that you get to spend with them. Bonding and interacting with your child is just as important to their intellectual and emotional well-being as phonics development.

When you read to your child, you are telling them that you are devoted to their education and that it can be a fun. By regularly reading to your children, you are creating a positive reinforcement around learning while getting to spend precious moments with your child.

Reading Development at The Apple Tree Learning Centers

At The Apple Tree Learning Center, we are dedicated to helping your child develop a lifelong love of reading, thinking and learning. Our three year old program incorporates reading and listening lessons that will help your child advance their vocabulary and comprehension before they even start formal education. Contact us today and set your child up for reading success!

As a parent, one of your biggest priorities is making sure that your child gets the best and latest child care and educational opportunities. In order to do that, it is important to keep up to date on the latest research on theories of learning, age considerations in educational programs and early childhood education in general. One of the most frequently studied aspects of education is the relationship between quality early childhood education and long term future academic and personal success. According to the National Education Association (NEA), early childhood education is “one of the best investments our country can make.”

What is Early Childhood Education?

Early Childhood Education is one of the best investment you can make in your child’s future.

Early childhood education is usually defined as education that occurs before the age of 8, but most of the research on long term benefits of early childhood education focuses on Pre K and preschool education, which typically occurs before age 5.

What does the research on early childhood education say?

The research compiled by the NEA indicates that children who are enrolled in childhood education programs benefit in a number of ways. In one study, children who were enrolled in preschool programs were found to earn 2,000 a month more than those who were not. And another study showed that children in early childhood education programs were less likely to have to repeat grades, required less special and remedial education and were less likely to have legal troubles.

Why is it so effective?

When children are young, they are like learning sponges.

The reasons that benefits are seen in the long term is because, as a teacher writing for the Huffington Post says, “When children are young, they are learning sponges.” Every interaction, every activity is a learning experience. So getting them started early is bound to have positive effects. And it doesn’t have to be just reading and writing, and arithmetic. For a young child even playtime is learning time!

Keep in mind, the world is a totally new place to your little one. It has not yet become the everyday place we are used to. They experience the world and all its wonders in a similar way that you experience a new culture when traveling in a foreign country. The sights, sounds, smells and language are all new. Exposing children to the world through early childhood education programs is one of the best ways to give your child a head start in life and learning.